


Not Your Usual Sort of Afterlife

by Lisztful



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisztful/pseuds/Lisztful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern au, reincarnation fic. After being king a thousand years ago, how can Arthur cope with being a normal, lonely guy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Your Usual Sort of Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme prompt, "Arthur remembers his life as Prince/King Arthur. He recalls the honor, power, and responsibility that he had as ruler of Camelot, and how epic and important he was. But now he's just a regular person with a day job, bills, and parking tickets. Inside he still feels like a prince/king, and he's depressed by the fact that his modern life seems pointless compared to being a ruler. He has a hard time dealing with the mundane aspects of being a regular bloke and he longs for the meaning and importance of his previous life. Then he meets Merlin. To Merlin, he is a king, and more important than the sun. Finally someone sees the noble and strong king he is inside."

Once upon a time there was a king. He was the very greatest king who ever ruled, many people agreed, and in his time his kingdom prospered, and was filled with many loving, loyal subjects. The king was even lucky enough to find love, which was far harder in those days where it might be necessary to siege a castle in order to see your beloved (Uther had a story or two about that, although he wasn't the storytelling type), than it is today, when you can send devotional messages via mobile phones. Even letters are a lot more reliable nowadays, honestly.

So, there was a king, and he was loved by his trusted adviser, a powerful sorcerer and renowned in his own right, and he loved his adviser back. The people of the nearby kingdoms all whispered of it, but in the good sort of way, not the angry way. The king and his sorcerer were kind, you see, and their love was the sort that was best appreciated when it was used to make sure the harvests were bountiful, and the ale casks never went dry.

Still, as is the way of things, such happiness could not last forever, and in the end, greed, a child whose heart was long broken, and a series of very sad, very fateful events led to the death of the beloved king and the shattering of his kingdom. He was taken to Avalon, where he had to wait for a very long time amongst the cold, misty ruins, and he wasn't allowed to leave again for over a thousand years, when he, Arthur Pendragon (who'd always thought his name was just an awful joke), realized that he had once been the greatest king of England, and now was a lackluster office worker of the dime-a-dozen sort whose car door jammed at least twice a day, and who had a very terrible wardrobe. As for the sorcerer, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Arthur's days were all the same. Well, there were some variations from weekday to weekend, visiting his parents for Sunday dinner and lying to them how delightful his day had been. They were nice enough people, though sometimes he had a particularly vivid memory of Uther shouting at him and wished they'd liven up a little. It didn't work. Harold Pendragon was a cook at the local fish-fry, and Cheryl was a school-mistress who wore her hair in a stiffened bob that somehow hadn't changed at all since the late 60's, when she'd first adopted it. Between the two of them, the small house always smelled of fish grease and crayons, and it was really a rather unsettling mix. Arthur thought of the smell of the castle kitchens before the midsummer feast and sighed, assuring his mother that yes, he did like the roast, very much.

It wasn't that he was ungrateful. He loved his family, tolerated his job, even managed to find some cheer in his awful, dingy flat. He put up tinsel for the holidays, and sometimes one of those tabletop trees, the kind that was made of wire and plastic bits, and he had a set of his mother's hand embroidered curtains in the window. Still, there was something about remembering defeating a Saxon horde that really put it all into perspective.

He'd really thought he was meant for bigger things. His mum'd told him so, when he was sick and miserable, and when he brought home the third place ribbon for excellent participation in the age 4-6 category of the town art fair. His parents still had the prizewinning creation, a mass of sharp lines in green and orange coloured pencil.

"Very modern," his mum had said, and his dad agreed. "That boy's going places."

But he didn't go places, and that was the problem. He tried to apply himself in school, but he was never as good as Candy Morrison, who won all the spelling bees and got a great lump of sticky taffy as a prize and wouldn't share it. He was already starting to have memories of Morgana by that point, which didn't exactly help.

After school, he thought about university, but it didn't work out. His parents had little money, and his marks didn't exactly indicate that he was a budding philosopher or dance choreographer or barrister. In fact, there was nothing he could think of that would compare to the feeling of riding out in the morning with his knights, of defeating wyverns and bugbears and other nasty and improbable creatures. There was becoming prime minister, of course, but that seemed like it was mostly paperwork, and in his first life, Arthur had barely been able to read. No, he wanted action, and after he found out how extremely hard it was to become a successful stunt coordinator, Arthur gave in and let his father find him a job at the local box factory, wearing a button down shirt and writing down people's orders for one hundred cardboard boxes, large in size, two cardboard boxes, deluxe parcel sized, thirty Styrofoam boxes, extra roomy.

He worked in his cubicle every day, taking down orders and watching the side of his hand go stained with ink. After, he'd stop by the fish and chips to say hello to his father, then he'd go home and eat a curry, or sometimes cook a pot of noodles if he was feeling very inspired. He'd think of Merlin feeding him whatever fruit was in season, of sucking the juice off his fingers and then laughing against his lips. Merlin always tasted sweet and warm and as though there was no place he'd rather be than kissing Arthur, even though he smelled of horses and had rolled in the mud all day while shouting at his knights. After, Arthur would wash the dishes while listening to the soft-rock station on the wireless, and wonder that had no recollection of actually eating.

After dinner, Arthur generally stared at the telly for a few hours while doing the crossword from the daily, or sometimes taking out a piece of paper and trying to draw Merlin's face. Third place for excellent participation was quite possibly the loftiest thing he'd ever achieved in this life, but even that wasn't enough to allow him to capture the way Merlin's cheeks dimpled when he smiled.

After he gave up on one pursuit or the other, not being very good at either, Arthur would find his way to bed, laying on his back under the flowered duvet his mother had given him in 1990, and staring up at the ceiling fan. "Goodnight, Merlin," he'd say aloud, and think of Merlin saying it back, whispering it in his ear and brushing kisses against his jaw and wrapping his body around Arthur's side, warm and happy and far too thin.

And so, the days went on, as they always did. It sometimes started to blur together, but he had ways of separating it all. On the first Tuesday in November, he remembered the feeling of Merlin lifting him up in the air with only his magic, the first time he'd used magic in public after Arthur had lifted Uther's ban. On September twenty-third, while showering, he remembered pushing Merlin into a pond, where he was promptly dragged along and convinced to partake in some highly debaucherous behavior. Merlin always did bring that out in him. Nowadays, he couldn't really sustain an interest long enough to do anything about it, although he did sometimes pull one off in the shower. This was one of those days.

So, life went on, mostly the same, but occasionally punctuated by favorite memories or particularly bad things, parking tickets, rain when he hadn't brought an umbrella, coffee cups spilling onto his favorite shirt. Sometimes his supervisor was cross with him, once he patted him on the shoulder, but mostly Arthur was ignored, and he ignored the world right back.

That is, until one very particular day in February. February was one of Arthur's least favorite months (if he stopped to think about it, which was rare). There were paper hearts plastered up all over his parents' house, and gold and red foil chains strung up around the office that fell into his tea every time he bumped the cubicle wall. Mrs. Carmichael, from cubicle 6 row 14 (just next to his, on the left) had taken to playing the top 100 romantic hits of the last century countdown on her wireless radio, and the dulcet strains of Hopelessly Devoted to You intruded upon Mr. Baker's call to order sixty cake-plate sized boxes, jewel-toned.

But, on the eleventh of February, everything changed. Arthur showed up to work at his usual time, wearing his blue button down shirt and carrying a ham sandwich in a brown paper bag. It was blue on Mondays and Thursdays, white on Tuesdays, and either tan or green on Wednesdays and Fridays, whatever he felt in the mood for. But today was Thursday, and that called for blue.

Arthur sat down at his cubicle, knocked his elbow against the cubicle wall, and rubbed it furiously for a moment while watching the foil chain sink into his teacup. After fishing it out, he readied himself for his day's calls, listening to Mrs. Carmichael hum along that E was very Extra-ordinary. seems just like any other letter to me, he thought sulkily, and dialed Mrs. Jones at the hardware store to take her bi-weekly order.

Only, this time, it was not Mrs. Jones who answered the phone. "Hello," said the very young, very cheerful male voice. "It's been quite a while, hmm?"

Arthur very nearly fell out of his chair, sending the foil chain spinning drunkenly over his desk and nearly upending his tea. Mrs. Carmichael huffed quite audibly at the disruption and turned up her radio so that Arthur could better enjoy finding out what happens When a Man Loves a Woman.

"Sorry," he said, trying to wipe off his tie where it'd dipped into the tea. "Who're you again?"

"Oh," the man said, and laughed brightly. "Merlin, silly. Sorry it took so long. I was stuck in a tree. Long story, Lady of the Lake, various evil deeds perpetrated upon me. I had a beard for a while but now I pretty much look good as new."

"Merlin?" Arthur said. "You work at the hardware store?"

"No silly," Merlin said. "You always were a bit slow. I just intercepted your call. You know, greatest warlock of all time, bend the rules of the universe, unhindered by space and time. You know, me."

"I think I have a wrong number," Arthur says, and hangs up the phone.

The rest of the day is equally bizarre. He sees a face in his tea, which he promptly tosses into the loo. He's stopped by a girl on the way to the fish-fry who tells him it was never his fault, that he was a great ruler and didn't let anyone down. The radio displays nothing but staticky pronunciations that he can't quite make out, and when he breaks a plate, the shards perfectly spell out, "prat."

"That's just uncalled for," he mutters, and wanders off to do the crossword.

He should have known better, really. The words all spell out soppy things like destiny and true love, and then when he resolutely ignores them in favor of Three down, an eight letter word for sled, toboggan, they start to get annoyed and rearrange into stubborn idiot, arse, and increasingly offensive phrases.

"Okay, That's enough," he says finally, in the general direction of the sofa. "Let's just sort out this misunderstanding so I can get back to my normal life."

"Oh thank god," Merlin says, and pops into being beside him, basically in his lap. "I thought you'd persist in being a prat all night."

"Look," Arthur says gruffly, and tries valiantly to ignore the very pleasant sensation of a warm sorcerer cuddled into his lap. "This is very nice and all, but I think you've got the wrong person."

Merlin looks unimpressed. "Let's see," he says. "You have memories of being a king, general arrogance, and worshiping the paradise of my glorious body?"

"Glorious body?" Arthur snorts. "You need to eat a sandwich." He then concedes, "I remember lots of things. But I'm not anything like that anymore. My life is terrible. I'll never be anything but mediocre."

"Oh my," Merlin says, and now he looks very serious. "I see I'm just in time." He clasps Arthur's hands in his own and leans forward until they're nose to nose, so close they could almost be kissing. "You're not nothing, you're you. I don't care what your job is, or how you've a startling lack of extracurriculars. I care about how when you were nine you nursed a sick cat back to health, just because you thought it was wrong that she had to be sick, and how you never tell your mother that her hairstyle makes her look insane. I care about how you visit your parents every week, and you don't cheat at work, and you still love your little routines. Most of all though," he says, and now their lips are brushing. "I care about how you've never forgotten about me, not once. You've never wished you could either, and believe me, I was pretty afraid of that while I was all bearded and tree-d and whatnot. But you never wavered, you were always happy to remember me, and now I'm back, and I love you really madly, and I hope you'll let me stay."

He didn't seem to care much for what Arthur might have to say about the matter, because he wasted no time in kissing him, but Arthur had to concede that that was really quite nice, and said what he wanted to say much better than words really could. It went on for a while, becoming increasingly enthusiastic, until they finally had to stop for breath, Arthur not having seriously kissed anybody in about a thousand years, and thus needing a little time to relearn the breathing and kissing at once thing.

"I'll quit my job," he decides, seriously. "Do something I've always dreamed of."

Merlin grins and plants kisses all over his face and squirms in a way that is unfairly pleasant. "Whatever you like," he says cheerfully. "I'm content to have a nice, quiet life, this time. What've you always dreamed of?"

"Well," Arthur says slowly. "I've always wanted to be a librarian."

"Child's play," Merlin says. "I'll magic us up a nice house while I'm at it. Two gay librarians and a house with a built-in kitchen island, coming right up."

"How did you know about the kitchen bit?" Arthur asks, a little put out. He thought he was less transparent than that.

"Easy," Merlin says. "You haven't changed so much since the last time I met you. I love you quite a lot, you know."

"I do," Arthur said, "and I quite agree, thank god."

"Thank me instead," says Merlin, and so Arthur happily does.


End file.
